Yeah, WTF? When the term “nanotechnology” is used, I think nanites. Little biomechanical buggers programmed to carry out a basic task then self-destruct and exit via urination.

In chemistry, it has another meaning.

And that’s apparently the one used to tout Swissdent, an allegedly-gentle daily-use whitening toothpaste:

The invention: Nanoxyd®

In the development of the active substance Nanoxyd® Dr. Velkoborsky used state-of-the-art technologies.
‘The tinier the active substance used, the easier it gets into places where it is intended to develop its effect.’

The calcium peroxide used in miniature form even penetrates into the tiniest of gaps and the interdental spaces, ensuring effective bleaching. Thanks to nano technology, SWISSDENT is able to generate an ideal result for your teeth with a small amount of bleach (0.1%), also permitting an extremely gentle and soft use. All Swissdent products have been clinically tested and can be used daily like conventional toothpaste.

Apparently, some of these will be using a dental remineralization technology called NovaMin. (There’s an impressive photo demo there.)

NovaMin is a made from the same bioactive material used in the most advanced bone regeneration material, which is available only to surgeons and has been used in over a million successful surgeries. This material has now been adapted for use in everyday oral care products to revitalize your teeth – producing teeth that are less sensitive, cleaner, whiter and healthier than possible with old technologies like fluoride.

Apparently one of this NovaMin-containing products has been marketed in the U.S. under the name Oravive.

Researchers have attempted for more than a decade to find drugs that shut down telomerase — widely considered the No. 1 target for the development of new cancer treatments — but have been hampered in large part by a lack of knowledge of the enzyme’s structure.

The findings, published online August 31 in Nature, should help researchers in their efforts to design effective telomerase inhibitors, says Emmanuel Skordalakes, Ph.D., assistant professor in Wistar’s Gene Expression and Regulation Program, who led the study.

“Telomerase is an ideal target for chemotherapy because it is active in almost all human tumors, but inactive in most normal cells,” Skordalakes says. “That means a drug that deactivates telomerase would likely work against all cancers, with few side effects.”

[Rhonda Byrne’s] lawyers had just sued two of the very people who were instrumental in launching her book and film The Secret to phenomenal success. Drew Heriot, the Australian director of the movie, and Dan Hollings, an Arizona internet consultant whose “viral marketing” helped propel Byrne to global fame via Oprah, had both been demanding that Byrne pay them a share of the estimated $US300 million ($340 million) revenue they claim she’d promised them. In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Byrne’s lawyers had counter-attacked by launching legal actions against both men in jurisdictions far from their homes, a tactic one judge has since described as vexatious and harassing.

Earlier this week I decided that I was going to start a new project. I’m calling the project $2 portraits and the project works like this. From this week going forward until the day that I die I am going to offer $2 to anyone who asks me for money in exchange for their portrait. While I’m taking their portrait I’m going to ask their name and try to learn a little bit about them. I plan on doing this for the rest of my life — assuming that I can afford to.

To make things easier I’m putting $2 in reserve money in a special place in my wallet so that even if I don’t have change I will always have the $2 to hand over.

In part I’m undertaking this project because I realize that I’ve been avoiding people asking me for money. My biggest motivation behind this project however is simply that I think human interaction is a good thing. I’m not doing this to exploit homeless people or show how hard and bad life can be. I’m doing this because I want to celebrate other human beings as human beings and I think that this commercial transaction gives us an opportunity to engage and interact on a more human level… and I also think that I can take a pretty decent portrait.